Presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has advocated
"carpet bombing" ISIS "into oblivion," a strategy that military
experts have
previously pointed out is ineffective and could
create mass civilian casualties.

MacFarland said that strategy is "inconsistent with our values,"
also citing the high risk of civilian deaths.

"At the end of the day it doesn't only matter if you win,"
MacFarland said. "It's how you win."

He added: "We're the
United States of America. We have a set of guiding principles.
Indiscriminate bombing, where we don't care if we're killing
innocents or combatants, is just inconsistent with our
values."

And he said that carpet bombing isn't just "tough talk," but
rather a different fundamental military strategy than that
of President Barack Obama. He slammed the president for
"degrading" the US military and invoked the air campaign of the
Persian Gulf War as a model for what the US should do to fight
ISIS in the Middle East.

But, as The Washington Post
noted, many of the air attacks from that war weren't
quite carpet bombing, but rather precision attacks. Carpet
bombing is generally considered large-scale, unguided bombing.

Cruz has previously defended his statements about carpet bombing
by saying that he would use the strategy on ISIS
positions rather than the cities ISIS occupies in Iraq and Syria.
But since ISIS integrates with the civilians populations it
controls, it's difficult to establish enemy positions that aren't
surrounded by civilians.